one by one, and lights twinkled in little casements; which lights, asthe casements darkened, and more stars came out, seemed to haveshot up into the sky instead of having been extinguished.The shadow of a large high-roofed house, and of manyoverhanging trees, was upon Monsieur the Marquis by that time;and the shadow was exchanged for the light of a flambeau, as hiscarriage stopped, and the great door of his chateau was opened tohim.“Monsieur Charles, whom I expect; is he arrived fromEngland?”“Monseigneur, not yet.”Charles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsA Tale of Two CitiesChapter XVTHE GORGON’S HEADIt was a heavy mass of building, that chateau of Monsieur theMarquis, with a large stone courtyard before it, and two stonesweeps of staircase meeting in a stone terrace before theprincipal door. A stony business altogether, with heavy stonebalustrades, and stone urns, and stone flowers, and stone faces ofmen, and stone heads of lions, in all directions. As if the Gorgon’shead had surveyed it, when it was finished, two centuries ago.Upon the broad flight of shallow steps, Monsieur the Marquis,flambeau preceded, went from his carriage, sufficiently disturbingthe darkness to elicit loud remonstrance from an owl in the roof ofthe great pile of stable building away among the trees. All else wasso quiet, that the flambeau carried up the steps, and the otherflambeau held at the great door, burnt as if they were in a closeroom of state, instead of being in the open night air. Other soundthan the owl’s voice there was none, save the falling of thefountain into its stone basin; for, it was one of those dark nightsthat hold their breath by the hour together, and then heave a longlow sigh, and hold their breath again.The great door clanged behind him, and Monsieur the Marquiscrossed a hall grim with certain old boar-spears, swords, andknives of the chase; grimmer with certain heavy riding-rods andriding-whips, of which many a peasant, gone to his benefactorDeath, had felt the weight when his lord was angry.Avoiding the larger rooms, which were dark and made fast forCharles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsA Tale of Two Citiesthe night, Monsieur the Marquis, with his flambeau-bearer goingon before, went up the staircase to a door in a corridor. Thisthrown open, admitted him to his own private apartment of threerooms: his bedchamber and two others. High vaulted rooms withcool uncarpeted floors, great dogs upon the hearths for theburning of wood in winter time, and all luxuries befitting the stateof a marquis in a luxurious age and country. The fashion of the lastLouis but one, of the line that was never to break—the fourteenthLouis—was conspicuous in their rich furniture; but, it wasdiversified by many objects that were illustrations of old pages inthe history of France.A supper-table was laid for two, in the third of the rooms; around room, in one of the chateau’s four extinguisher-toppedtowers. A small lofty room, with its window wide open, and thewooden jalousie-blinds closed, so that the dark night only showedin slight horizontal lines of black, alternating with their broadlines of stone colour.“My nephew,” said the Marquis, glancing at the supperpreparation; “they said he was not arrived.”Nor was he; but, he had been expected with Monseigneur.“Ah! It is not probable he will arrive tonight; nevertheless, leavethe table as it is. I shall be ready in a quarter of an hour.”In a quarter of an hour Monseigneur was ready, and sat downalone to his sumptuous and choice supper. His chair was oppositeto the window, and he had taken his soup, and was raising hisglass of Bordeaux to his lips, when he put it down.“What is that?” he calmly asked, looking with attention at thehorizontal lines of black and stone colour.“Monseigneur! That?”Charles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsA Tale of Two Cities“Outside the blinds. Open the blinds.”It was done.“Well?”“Monseigneur, it is nothing. The trees and the night are all thatare here.”The servant who spoke, had thrown the blinds wide, had lookedout into the vacant darkness, and stood, with that blank behindhim, looking round for instructions.“Good,” said the imperturbable master. “Close them again.”That was done too, and the Marquis went on with his supper.He was halfway through it, when he again stopped with his glassin his hand, hearing the sound of wheels. It came on briskly, andcame up to the front of the chateau.“Ask who is arrived.”It was the nephew of Monseigneur. He had been some fewleagues behind Monseigneur, early in the afternoon. He haddiminished the distance rapidly, but not so rapidly as to come upwith Monseigneur on the road. He had heard of Monseigneur, atthe posting-houses, as being before him.He was to be told (said Monseigneur) that supper awaited himthen and there, and that he was prayed to come to it. In a littlewhile he came. He had been known in England as Charles Darnay.Monseigneur received him in a courtly manner, but they didnot shake hands.“You left Paris yesterday, sir?” he said to Monseigneur, as hetook his seat at table.“Yesterday. And you?”“I come direct.”“From London?”Charles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsA Tale of Two Cities“Yes.”“You have been a long time coming,” said the Marquis, with asmile.“On the contrary; I come direct.”“Pardon me! I mean, not a long time on the journey; a long timeintending the journey.”“I have been detained by”—the nephew stopped a moment inhis answer—“various business.”“Without doubt,” said the polished uncle.So long as a servant was present, no other words passedbetween them. When coffee had been served and they were alonetogether, the nephew, looking at the uncle and meeting the eyes ofthe face that was like a fine mask, opened a conversation.“I have come back, sir, as you anticipate, pursuing the objectthat took me away. It carried me into great and unexpected peril;but it is a sacred object, and if it had carried me to death I hope itwould have sustained me.”“Not to death,” said the uncle; “it is not necessary to say, todeath.”“I doubt, sir,” returned the nephew, “whether, if it had carriedme to the utmost brink of death, you would have cared to stop methere.”The deepened marks in the nose, and the lengthening of thefine straight lines in the cruel face, looked ominous as to that; theuncle made a graceful gesture of protest, which was so clearly aslight form of good breeding that it was not reassuring.“Indeed, sir,” pursued the nephew, “for anything I know, youmay have expressly worked to give a more suspicious appearanceto the suspicious circumstances that surrounded me.”Charles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsA Tale of Two Cities“No, no, no,” said the uncle, pleasantly.“But, however that may be,” resumed the nephew, glancing athim with deep distrust, “I know that your diplomacy would stopme by any means, and would know no scruple as to means.”“My friend, I told you so,” said the uncle, with a fine pulsationin the two marks. “Do me the favour to recall that I told you so,long ago.”“I recall it.”“Thank you,” said the Marquis—very sweetly in deed.His tone lingered in the air, almost like the tone of a musicalinstrument.“In effect, sir,” pursued the nephew, “I believe it to be at onceyour bad fortune, and my good fortune, that has kept me out of aprison in France here.”“I do not quite understand,” returned the uncle, sipping hiscoffee. “Dare I ask you to explain?”“I believe that if you were not in disgrace with the Court, andhad not been overshadowed by that cloud for years past, a letterde cachet would have sent me to some fortress indefinitely.”“It is possible,” said the uncle, with great calmness. “For thehonour of the family, I could even resolve to incommode you tothat extent. Pray excuse me!”“I perceive that, happily for me, the Reception of the day beforeyesterday was, as usual, a cold one,” observed the nephew.“I would not say happily, my friend,” returned the uncle, withrefined politeness; “I would not be sure of that. A goodopportunity for consideration, surrounded by the advantages ofsolitude, might influence your destiny to far greater advantagethan you influence it for yourself. But it is useless to discuss theCharles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsA Tale of Two Citiesquestion. I am, as you say, at a disadvantage. These littleinstruments of correction, these gentle aids to the power andhonour of families, these slight favours that might so incommodeyou, are only to be obtained now by interest and importunity.They are sought by so many, and they are granted (comparatively)to so few! It used not to be so, but France in all such things ischanged for the worse. Our not remote ancestors held the right oflife and death over the surrounding vulgar. From this room, manysuch dogs have been taken out to be hanged; in the next room (mybedroom), one fellow, to our knowledge, was poniarded on thespot for professing some insolent delicacy respecting hisdaughter—his daughter? We have lost many privileges; a newphilosophy has become the mode; and the assertion of our station,in these days, might (I do not go as far as to say would, but might)cause us real inconvenience. All very bad, very bad!”The Marquis took a gentle little pinch of snuff, and shook hishead; as elegantly despondent as he could becomingly be of acountry still containing himself, that great means of regeneration.“We have so asserted our station, both in the old time and inthe modern time also,” said the nephew, gloomily, “that I believeour name to be more detested than any name in France.”“Let us hope so,” said the uncle. “Detestation of the high is theinvoluntary homage of the low.”“There is not,” pursued the nephew, in his former tone, “a faceI can look at, in all this country round about us, which looks at mewith any deference on it but the dark deference of fear andslavery.”“A compliment,” said the Marquis, “to the grandeur of thefamily, merited by the manner in which the family has sustainedCharles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsA Tale of Two Citiesits grandeur. Hah!” And he took another gentle little pinch ofsnuff, and lightly crossed his legs.But, when his nephew, leaning an elbow on the table, coveredhis eyes thoughtfully and dejectedly with his hand, the fine masklooked at him sideways with a stronger concentration of keenness,closeness, and dislike, than was comportable with its wearer’sassumption of indifference.“Repression is the only lasting philosophy. The dark deferenceof fear and slavery, my friend,” observed the Marquis, “will keepthe dogs obedient to the whip, as long as this roof,” looking up toit, “shuts out the sky.”That might not be so long as the Marquis supposed. If a pictureof the chateau as it was to be a very few years hence, and of fiftylike it as they too were to be a very few years hence, could havebeen shown to him that night, he might have been at a loss toclaim his own from the ghastly, fire-charred, plunder-wreckedruins. As for the roof he vaunted, he might have found thatshutting out the sky in a new way—to wit, for ever, from the eyesof the bodies into which its lead was fired, out of the barrels of ahundred thousand muskets.“Meanwhile,” said the Marquis, “I will preserve the honour andrepose of the family if you will not. But you must be fatigued. Shallwe terminate our conference for the night?”“A moment more.”“An hour, if you please.”“Sir,” said the nephew, “we have done wrong, and are reapingthe fruits of wrong.”“We have done wrong?” repeated the Marquis, with aninquiring smile, and delicately pointing, first to his nephew, thenCharles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsA Tale of Two Citiesto himself.“Our family; our honourable family, whose honour is of somuch account to both of us, in such different ways. Even in myfather’s time, we did a world of wrong, injuring every humancreature who came between us and our pleasure, whatever it was.Why need I speak of my father’s time, when it is equally yours?Can I separate my father’s twin-brother, joint inheritor, and nextsuccessor, from himself?”“Death has done that!” said the Marquis.“And has left me,” answered the nephew, “bound to a systemthat is frightful to me, responsible for it, but powerless in it;seeking to execute the last request of my dear mother’s lips, andobey the last look of my dear mother’s eyes, which implored me tohave mercy and to redress; and tortured by seeking assistance andpower in vain.”“Seeking them from me, my nephew,” said the Marquis,touching him on the breast with his forefinger—they were nowstanding by the hearth—“you will for ever seek them in vain, beassured.”Every fine straight line in the clear whiteness of his face, wascruelly, craftily, and closely compressed, while he stood lookingquietly at his nephew, with his snuff-box in his hand. Once againhe touched him on the breast, as though his finger were the finepoint of a small sword, with which, in delicate finesse, he ran himthrough the body, and said, “My friend, I will die, perpetuating thesystem under which I have lived.”When he had said it, he took a culminating pinch of snuff, andput his box in his pocket.“Better to be a rational creature,” he added then, after ringing aCharles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsA Tale of Two Citiessmall bell on the table, “and accept your natural destiny. But youare lost, Monsieur Charles, I see.”“This property and France are lost to me,” said the nephew,sadly; “I renounce them.”“Are they both yours to renounce? France may be, but is theproperty? It is scarcely worth mentioning; but, is it yet?”“I had no intention, in the words I used, to claim it yet. If itpassed to me from you, tomorrow—”“Which I have the vanity to hope is not probable.”“—or twenty years hence—”“You do me too much honour,” said the Marquis; “still, I preferthat supposition.”“—I would abandon it, and live otherwise and elsewhere. It islittle to relinquish. What is it but a wilderness of misery and ruin!”“Hah!” said the Marquis, glancing round the luxurious room.“To the eye it is fair enough, here; but seen in its integrity,under the sky, and by the daylight, it is a crumbling tower ofwaste, mismanagement, extortion, debt, mortgage, oppression,hunger, nakedness, and suffering.”“Hah!” said the Marquis again, in a well-satisfied manner.“If it ever becomes mine, it shall be put into some hands betterqualified to free it slowly (if such a thing is possible) from theweight that drags it down, so that the miserable people whocannot leave it and who have been long wrung to the last point of